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CS92PROD
Entertaining Social Change

AMST 315
Spring 2017 not offered
Crosslisting: ENGL 309, FGSS 315, CHUM 334
Certificates: Social, Cultural, and Critical Theory

How has the systemic critique of social contradictions been popularized in modern times? We will consider the diverse strategies that artists, songwriters/performers, radical historians (working with cartoonists), and moviemakers have developed to entertain Americans--teach them, fascinate them, move them, persuade them, provoke them, make them laugh--so that Americans will be more inclined to entertain social critique. We will explore the popularizing (and the selling) of social critique in several genres: art (Barbara Kruger); graphic history (Howard Zinn, Paul Buhle); songs/song lyrics (Woody Guthrie/protest folksingers); folk-rockstars such as Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, Jackson Browne, Ani DiFranco, and Father John Misty; Gil Scott-Heron, NWA (and the political development of hip-hop); politically edgy comedy (Lenny Bruce, Bill Hicks); and movies (No, Network, Wall Street, The Wolf of Wall Street, The Big Short, Up In the Air, Falling Down, Matewan, Blue Collar, Malcolm X).
Credit: 1 Gen Ed Area Dept: SBS AMST
Course Format: SeminarGrading Mode: Graded
Level: UGRD Prerequisites: None
Fulfills a Requirement for: (AMST)(ENGL)(FGSS)(FILM-MN)(HRAD-MN)

Last Updated on OCT-03-2024
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